Nature and Children

Tag Archives: pollution

Children are curious observers who often see things with fresh eyes, from different perspectives and of course lower heights. Photography is a playful tool to invite them to share with us what they find interesting when in nature.

When we were coming back from school in a warm afternoon, I gave Rauz our small digital camera and invited her to take pictures of anything she liked. She started taking pictures of trees in buds, tiny dandelions, dried leaves on the ground, and bushes. Then she decided to make some arrangements before taking a photo. She put pine cones, big pieces of barks, and leaves on a cut tree trunk and then took pictures. From those pictures, she chose this one and asked me to post it in this blog. I asked her why and she said, “I took this picture because I wanted to see how this pine cone is going to drawn or I wanted to see how this pine cone is going to grow or die next year.”

Rauz gradually became more excited about the experience moving from one flower or tree to another while we were walking. She liked to see the pictures on the camera’s screen right after she took them. I noticed that the experience is challenging her to sit and look carefully at tiny corners, holes, and details that otherwise she would’ve not been very interested in. So on that day, photography became one way to engage with nature and investigate it.

We also became surprised to see how city garbage is tangled with our natural environment. So Rauz also asked me to post this picture and said, “Is this a very nice picture? No! It is not because you see a picture of an old plastic piece of garbage bag.”

She said she wants to go back to this place to see how these things may change in a year.

After a windy day, my daughter and I went for a walk in our neighborhood. It broke my heart to see garbage bags every where. My daughter took this picture of a tree that is mis-decorated by garbage bags. She said the tree must feel very sad.

It is hard to say how long it takes for a garbage bag to completely degrade, but some says perhaps about 100 years.

Let’s be more thoughtful in our next shopping ; we don’t wish to pollute our cities with something that outlive many of us, or do we?

This is a picture that my daughter took from another tree right outside her childcare center. The beautiful authority and the outstanding power of this tree in this picture are what I wish I could save for the generation coming after me.